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Vasorin contributes to lung injury via FABP4-mediated inflammation

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Abstract

Background

Lung injury caused by pulmonary inflammation is one of the main manifestations of respiratory diseases. Vasorin (VASN) is a cell-surface glycoprotein encoded by the VASN gene and is expressed in the lungs of developing mouse foetuses. Previous research has revealed that VASN is associated with many diseases. However, its exact function in the lungs and the underlying mechanism remain poorly understood.

Methods and results

To investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in lung disease caused by VASN deficiency, a VASN gene knockout (VASN−/−) model was established. The pathological changes in the lungs of VASN−/− mice were similar to those in a lung injury experimental mouse model. We further analysed the transcriptomes of the lungs of VASN−/− mice and wild-type mice. Genes in twenty-four signalling pathways were enriched in the lungs of VASN−/− mice, among which PPAR signalling pathway genes (3 genes, FABP4, Plin1, AdipoQ, were upregulated, while apoA5 was downregulated) were found to be closely related to lung injury. The most significantly changed lung injury-related gene, FABP4, was selected for further verification. The mRNA and protein levels of FABP4 were significantly increased in the lungs of VASN−/− mice, as were the mRNA and protein levels of the inflammatory factors IL-6, TNF-α and IL-1β.

Conclusions

We believe that these data provide molecular evidence for the regulatory role of VASN in inflammation in the context of lung injury.

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Data availability

The data sets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Yuanjie Huang and Jiaquan Li (Institute of Life Sciences, Guangxi Medical University) for technical help with histology.

Funding

This study is supported by the Central Government Guides the Development of Local Science and Technology (GUIKEZY1949025 and GUIKEZY20198024).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory Animal Center, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, Guangxi, China

    Xiaoping Guo, Junming Sun, Jinning Liang, Mingyuan Zhang, Xuejing Huang, Kangning Xue, Zhongxiang Mo, Sha Wen, Bing Hu, Jiajuan Liu, Yiqiang Ouyang & Min He

  2. School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, China

    Lichao Yang & Min He

  3. Key Laboratory of High-Incidence-Tumor Prevention & Treatment (Guangxi Medical University), Ministry of Education, Nanning, 530021, China

    Min He

  4. College of Animal Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, Guangxi, China

    Siran Zhu

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  1. Xiaoping Guo
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Contributions

Conceptualization: XG, YO, and MH; investigation/data acquisition: XG, JS, JL, SZ, MZ, LY, XH, KX, SW, and ZM; writing and visualization: XG and MH; supervision and resource support: BH and JL; project administration and funding acquisition: YO and MH.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yiqiang Ouyang or Min He.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All animal experiments were approved by the local ethics committee for animal welfare (Guangxi Medical University, China, 201909027) and performed in accordance with the Association for Research statement on the use of animals in lung research.

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Guo, X., Sun, J., Liang, J. et al. Vasorin contributes to lung injury via FABP4-mediated inflammation. Mol Biol Rep 49, 9335–9344 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-022-07780-9

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